The Book Lightwalker Files

On occasion, I see a sci-fi show that features some scientist inventing some kind of potion or device to make a person, or a group of people, forget they saw whatever they saw, and go with a “different reality.” I know, psychology and psychiatry has been doing this for decades, ever since Sigmund Freud. Usually it’s done by hypnotism, or worse, by some New Age development to bypass the subconscious.

Memory stories like these must be hard to write. Under no...

With a February topic like “Opportunity,” it was hard to zero in on one particular race. There are lots of wars—the Borg, the Romulans, the Klingons, among others—where one side takes the opportunity to prevail against Starfleet, but this is not so much an opportunity as much as a power play. Ultimately, the prize went to the always enterprising Ferengi.

Their heads appear misshapen, their ears are oversized and connected by a brow ridge that suggest...

In my recent push to fully blog about every episode in the original series, I find another time travel story that’s been neglected. The seemingly anachronistic story of “Tomorrow is Yesterday” pits two military forces against each other, though not overtly; and unlike the situations I discussed on January 16 this year, the displaced airman and the police sergeant are sent back.

It opens on jets scr...

UPDATE: The disease I mentiioned last week is all but gone. Now if the weather would cooperate, I could go out and about again. Thank you, all, for your prayers.

“Forward” seemed like a good topic for January, but at the same time, we’re considering closing the blog chain down for a season. Lack of interest and no follow-through from some chainers is part of the reason. Another could be that lives constantly change, wheth...

For my last article of 2012, and my first article of 2013, I’ll be talking about Holly Marten of Eureka, the motor-mouth genius who becomes Douglas Fargo’s love interest. She’s a cute redhead who rattles off anything that comes to mind, giving her an air of instant charm. But as usual for this series, there’s a dark side to the charm.

She likes Dungeons and Dragons, an insidious role-playing game that introduces players to the Occult. Role pla...

“How you have fallen from Heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the Pit&#...

November’s blog chain is on the subject of “Heirlooms.” Usually the word conjures up some trinket, some picture, a house lived in for generations, or war medals, among others. These are fine, as far as they go. One of my favorite episodes of The Dick van Dyke Show included Laura Petrie receiving a brooch from her father. Shaped like a map of the United States, it held a birthstone in every town where family members were born.

A different kind o...

Today my blog day falls on Halloween itself, so I wanted to do something very special with it. What better topic than to discuss the author of Halloween, Satan? Last week I reviewed several episodes in Star Trek and Doctor Who which throw the word “devil” around like a rag doll, so today I’ll discuss the Next Generation episode, “Devil’s Due.”

In some perverse way, I like this story, despite that the the...

Once again, I have a blog-chain month’s topic that’s common in science fiction: “Discovery,” in honor of Christopher Columbus. People with the mind powers to discover truths show up a lot in this genre. Realistically, of course, nobody can see into another’s mind without spiritual revelation, whether for good or for evil.

Oh, sure, we can surmise their thoughts by reading their expressions and body language, and listening to the way they speak...

Today is my entry in the September blog chain. With a topic like “Change,” there are a number of directions I could go, because science fiction is full of different changes. The most obvious one is the belief in evolution, a religion of theories about gradual alterations from one creature to another. Never mind that no fossil has ever been found, showing progressive stages of development. We cannot confuse the “truth” with evidence, after all.